🚨 New Defense Claim in Lindsay Clancy Trial Puts Five Alleged Words Under the Spotlight

CASE UPDATE: Investigators are now focusing on the ha-unting five words Lindsay Clancy claims she heard before the trag-edy… and the revelation is drawing even closer attention as her trial unfolds

A MOM accused of strangling her three young children allegedly told doctors she heard a chilling five-word command before the killings.

Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial is now underway, with prosecutors claiming the former labor and delivery nurse carefully planned the deaths.

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Meanwhile, her defense insists she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and was driven by terrifying hallucinations.

Jurors in Plymouth, Mᴀssachusetts, are expected to hear weeks of evidence over the deaths of Clancy’s three children – Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan.

According to her attorney, Kevin Reddington, Clancy later said she heard voices telling her: “This is your last chance. Kill the children so you can kill yourself.”

The alleged statement is expected to be central to the defense’s case as lawyers argue Clancy was not criminally responsible because of postpartum psychosis, a rare psychiatric condition linked to childbirth.

But prosecutors are expected to argue Clancy knew exactly what she was doing when she allegedly strangled her children on January 24, 2023.

They claim she sent her then-husband, Patrick Clancy, out on errands before carrying out the killings inside the family’s Mᴀssachusetts home.

Afterward, prosecutors say, Clancy jumped from a second-story window, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down

At the time, Clancy had reportedly been receiving psychiatric treatment for around four months after her mental health dramatically deteriorated following the birth of her youngest child.

According to court filings and her legal team, she became manic, struggled to sleep, experienced suicidal thoughts and sought treatment from specialists in postpartum mood disorders.

She was prescribed multiple psychiatric medications and later admitted herself to a psychiatric hospital after the treatments allegedly failed to help.

The killings happened just 19 days after she was discharged.

If convicted of murder, Clancy faces life in prison without the possibility parole.

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If jurors instead find her not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility, she would be committed to a state psychiatric hospital rather than prison.

Legal analyst and Boston criminal defense attorney Elyse Hershon said the trial is likely to hinge on whether jurors believe Clancy understood what she was doing.

“Whenever there are deaths of children, it rattles emotions. Because these actions are incomprehensible and the outcome so horrific, people tend to want to hold someone responsible,” Hershon said.

“Some people naturally will identify and sympathize with Clancy and her postpartum depression, and others will not be able to understand how one could end their children’s lives, and demand responsibility.”

Postpartum depression affects many women after childbirth, but postpartum psychosis is far rarer, affecting an estimated one to two women in every 1,000 births.

The condition can cause hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, severe mood changes and thoughts of harming yourself or others, although experts stress that most women with postpartum psychosis never harm their children.

Nicole Cirino, director of the Division of Reproductive Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine, said mothers suffering from postpartum psychosis can become convinced they are protecting their children.

In their own minds, “they may be saving their children from damnation,” Cirino said.

Dr. Catherine Birndorf, CEO and founder of The Motherhood Center in New York City, which treats mothers with perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, said women suffering from postpartum psychosis should be viewed as seriously ill.

“Women who kill their children in the throes of this medical illness, postpartum psychosis, are seriously and profoundly mentally ill. They are not evil,” Birndorf said.

“To me it’s illness until proven otherwise.

“The fact that we consider it criminal until proven otherwise is problematic.”

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The case has drawn comparisons with several high-profile US cases involving mothers accused of killing their children while suffering severe mental illness.

In 2001, Texas mother Andrea Yates drowned her five children after her lawyers argued she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and believed killing them would save them from hell.

Her original murder conviction was later overturned, and she was found not guilty by reason of insanity at a retrial before being committed to a state mental hospital.

Another Texas mother, Dena Schlosser, was also found not guilty by reason of insanity in 2006 after killing her 10-month-old daughter.

Meanwhile, Clancy and her former husband, Patrick, have both filed lawsuits alleging her medical providers failed to properly diagnose and treat her condition before the tragedy.

Mental health advocates say awareness of postpartum psychosis has increased since the Yates case, but argue criminal courts still rarely account for the condition.

Illinois remains the only US state with a law allowing undiagnosed or untreated postpartum depression or postpartum psychosis to be considered a mitigating factor during sentencing.